were covered with gauze, with reddened lips and palms, wearing massive golden ear-rings, their hair twisted into innumerable thin ringlets at the end of which hung golden coins, with silver bracelets jingling on their bare ankles and their arms. We waited for their dances in vain, these daughters of the East absolutely refused to exhibit themselves before “Giaours” (Christians), and passed their time in throwing alluring glances at a group of good-looking young “hadjis” (men who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca or Medina), sitting in the first row. The next day we visited the mosque of “Amrou.” Before entering it, we were told to tie on straw slippers upon our shoes. In the shadow of the mosque it was nice and cool. A palm had grown in the second court near a cistern where pilgrims performed their ablutions. The mosque is a large square building containing a whole forest of miraculous columns—“Proof Columns,” as they are called—standing very near each other, and giving passage to the “Just” and keeping back the “Perverted.” The proof can’t be precisely right, for according to it, it is only slim individuals who are ascertained to be the “Just,” while those inclined to be fat, always appear to be “Perverse.” A “muezzin” was chanting the Koran, in the middle of the mosque, to a throng of pilgrims prostrating themselves in prayer before the tomb of Caliph Amrou, who was buried on the spot where he had been killed during a great slaughter, which took place in the altar during the fight of the Arabs and the Mamelukes. We mounted on the citadel that same afternoon. Before reaching the old fortress built on the spur of the Mokattam hills, we passed threatening British cannon, which kept watch over the town of Cairo, and passed through the iron-clamped gates to the wide courtyard where stands the mosque of Mohammed-Ali, now converted into barracks. When we returned to the hotel our way was barred by a funeral procession, escorted by a group of dervishes bearing ragged banners and chanting the Koran to the accompaniment of drums, and hired women-mourners, who beat their breasts and scratched their faces wailing lamentably all the time. Behind them the favourite donkey of the deceased was led. Some steps further we were brought to a stand-still by a wedding procession. A rich palankeen, bearing the newly married couple appeared, placed on two shafts, to which two splendid dromedaries were harnessed, one behind and one in the front, covered with bright scarlet nets and decorated with tufts of white ostrich feathers and little silver bells. Camels heavily laden with the wedding gifts brought up the rear.